It’s practically a cliché at this point: An angry father gets fed up with his lazy son playing video games all day instead of looking for a job. But Kotaku reports that one father in China went outside the box when thinking of ways to get his son off the computer: He hired a team of virtual assassins to repeatedly kill his son’s favorite character in a popular online role-playing game. According to Kotaku, 23-year-old Xiao Feng had been in and out of jobs for years while pointedly telling his father that he didn’t want to work for a living. Even after his father ruined his online gaming experience by having his character die numerous times, the defiant Feng told his father that he was still “not looking for any job” and that he wanted “to take some time to find one that suits me.” So let this be a lesson to all you crafty entrepreneurs out there thinking you can make a fortune by creating a virtual Dark Brotherhood to take out game addicts’ MMO characters: This sort of intervention apparently isn’t all that effective.

Capcom senior vice president Christian Svensson has voiced his opinion over the Sony’s massive security breach on the Capcom forums. “As an executive responsible for running a business, the resulting outage [is] obviously costing us hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in revenue that were planned for within our budget,” Svensson said in a public forum response. “These are funds we rely on to bring new games to market for our fans.” Capcom has a storefront that offers users the option to purchase extra game content on the PlayStation Network. Svenesson clarified in another post and added that he — and perhaps Capcom, too — is more frustrated with the hackers than with Sony, which he views as the victim. More →

Sony will access to its PlayStation Network and Qriocity services by May 31st, Bloomberg is reporting. Sony took its networks offline after a confirmed 101 million accounts were compromised and 12.3 million credit card numbers were stolen by hackers. Sony’s president, chairman, and CEO, Howard Stringer, has said Sony is “absolutely dedicated to restoring full and safe service as soon as possible,” and has promised users a “Welcome Back” package that includes a free month of its PlayStation Plus service, as well as credit for the downtime. More →

Following preliminary news of another major security breach, Sony confirmed late on Monday that its Sony Online Entertainment portal has been hacked and the personal data of its users has been compromised. Sony said the cyberattack took place on Sunday, and its online gaming portal was taken offline as an initial countermeasure. The company is currently working with the FBI to investigate the breach, which the company has confirmed may have exposed personal data associated with 25 million online accounts. Sony has also confirmed that 10,700 non-U.S. debit card numbers and 12,700 non-U.S. credit card numbers may have been stolen, though the company said its main credit card database was not compromised. Sony Online Entertainment, or SOE, is a portal that hosts several popular Massively Multiplayer Online PC games such as EverQuest and DC Universe Online. Hit the break for Sony’s letter to SOE users. More →